voyeuristics
by altairity
Summary: There's a rumor going around camp, that the dancer in the dark's got a secret to share if you only keep quiet as you learn it. [Inigo, Cynthia, Owain, Noire, Gerome, & Lucina]


**_voyeuristics_**

* * *

The pose feels consummately unheroic: crouched in the bushes, her pigtails tangled in needles and her armor cushioned in dirt. Cynthia winces each time her breastplate or cuisses creak. But she doubts he would register the sounds even if he heard them, spinning to his own beat as he is.

The moonlight catches on the glass of the water, painting for him a stage of suffused light. Inigo's arms arch high, wrists flexed. His head tips back slowly, deliberately, nose to the sky and lips sealed against it—and then he whirls. Inigo in motion is like a leaf caught in an eddy of the wind.

She can hear him, though, the way he quietly reprimands himself when he makes a misstep, pausing to bounce on the balls of his feet while he thinks over the motion. The way he breathes, the way he sometimes turns to expose the glow high in his cheeks that makes _her_ blush in answer.

Cynthia is hardly one for quiet entrances and exits, but she leaves without saying anything that night. The person before her does not feel like the childhood friend she's in love with, not when he's dancing.

Except that she can't help but tell Owain as he passes by the next day, because the excitement is bursting in her and she knows he of all people might respond to it. They trade smiles, wide as crescent moons.

* * *

Owain's a little hesitant at first despite Cynthia's enthusiasm; it feels a little creepy. Still, he admits his curiosity by following her directions to the spot by the lake anyways. And the blood usually boiling in his veins goes cold and still as he watches the other boy leap a song into being by the water.

All of his armor off, discarded by the shore with his sword, Inigo would look oddly vulnerable compared to in battle if not for the startling force of his movements. Owain has seen Olivia dance, and been restored by it. Though Inigo shares his mother's grace of movement, his has an edge and economy to it all his own. Watching her was taking in new breath. Watching him is like having his own breath ripped out of his lungs to be replaced by Inigo's; soft, steady exhalations, amid a maelstrom.

On his way back to camp he catches Noire up early, tiptoeing her way to the training grounds with her quiver trembling in cold-numbed fingers, and even the voice with which he speaks to her sounds more like Inigo's than his own.

* * *

At first she thinks she's going to snap.

There is violence in Inigo's dance, violence that speaks to that in her.

Battle-memories and bloodlust rush to her mind. The ring of a sword, the nocking of an arrow. The haze of black magic like a second wedding veil around her mother's face.

Yet something differs here. His movements parallel the thrusting of a sword, certainly, but transmute it to elegance. Never could an archer let fly an arrow with such softness in his gaze.

It's preternatural. (And he was the one who had once called _her_ ethereal.)

Noire touches a hand to her cheek, and finds herself silently shedding tears.

The next day, several comment on her calmness in battle. Even Gerome raises an eyebrow at her when she hits her mark again and again, cutting a swath through the Risen before they can come within fifty paces of the Shepherds. Afterwards, he asks.

* * *

The days are getting colder, but they can't move from their station until the entire radius of the village is clear. Gerome fights off a shiver as he trudges out in the coldest hour of the night. When he clears the cattails framing the lake, he stills. He figures his ensemble affords him the opportunity to stand in plain sight without being spotted. Maybe Minerva too, if she keeps her wings folded and in shadow.

He hears a thump and soft cursing. Inigo bends over his calf, massaging it with deft fingers. After a moment he sighs and rises, interlacing his hands and opening them to the sky.

Halfway through the motion, his hands fall to his sides and propel him into a spin. Before he can slow, he leaps. Minerva's chest rumbles in appreciation as Inigo's feet touch the grass and spring lightly from it the next moment, as if flirting with the ground itself. Part of him is not surprised. Anyone who has fought with Inigo, as Gerome has many a time, can discern how naturally acrobatics come to him.

Even when he stumbles on a particularly complex spin, Inigo works on the fault with more patience than Gerome would have anticipated. He goes through the motions again and again, and each time Gerome can see him learning from the language of his body. Finally, he pulls off the pirouette flawlessly. Impressive, for a skirt-chaser. Gerome flies back to camp and tries to forget the spectacle.

But Lucina's been looking grim of late. Something buckles in him to see her that way, and he wonders if he knows a way to lighten her load.

* * *

She is, at first, skeptical. And then she is transported: the boy, the moonlight, the water. The flush on his cheeks and the wind through his hair. All of her comrades have their hidden talents, but this one is far too sacrosanct to remain hidden.

Lucina fights with the reluctance inside of her to interrupt. But she is forever bonded to the name of the Hero-King, and his was not a nature to back away. As Inigo finishes his routine and moves towards the discarded pile of his mercenary armor, she sweeps out of the trees with a subdued and simple "Marvelous."

He freezes. "Lucina?" All his previous ease gone, he suddenly appears like the Inigo she sometimes glimpses: gawky joints, luminescent blush, looking away.

"The others' tales could hardly capture it."

"O… others? Don't tell me—"

"It's no secret, Inigo."

She catches a low intake of breath, and he looks on the brink of tears. Perhaps she shouldn't have? She takes his hand, and presses it between both of hers. With her armor on and his off, the situation feels a bit unbalanced. Is she speaking as a commander, or a friend? There's a slight shake to his hand, and a tremble to her voice.

"And we wouldn't wish it to be."

He flashes her a scared smile, his customary defense. She grimaces, tightens her grip, pulls him to her. Damn her armor. It keeps her from really feeling the warmth of his skin. Still, the burning in her as their lips meet—it must be from something other than her own feelings, from something shared by all of them who have watched him dance.

* * *

Inigo uses words to draw in the girls, but all the while he's known that words are flimsy things compared to the truths of the body. Its instinctual knowledge, swaying and turning in conjunction with the deepest urges of the soul. His dance, and Lucina's kiss. The dark of the night, and the still of the water: the place where performance and voyeurism meet, and exceed the walls of inhibition in either.

* * *

 **A/N** : Commemorating the tenth anniversary of my account. I have hopped many fandoms, felt deeply for each, and learned much about my writing style from fanfic, mine and others'. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed my fic over the years.


End file.
